The present disclosure relates to a printed circuit assembly and, in particular, to a printed circuit board having two or more different types of boards arranged in a co-planar manner.
Many direct current to direct current (DC/DC) converters require a highly thermally conductive printed wiring board for power-handling and high power dissipating components. The power-handling components require very low electrical resistance to minimize power losses and low thermal resistance to minimize increases in the device temperature. Whereas the power components require thick low-electrical-resistance conductors for mounting and interconnection, low-voltage components, such as control and data communications circuitry, require thin conductors and high densities of interconnections among circuit components. Thus, there exists an inherent conflict of requirements between power component and low-voltage components. Historically this has been resolved by utilizing two physically separate and disparate printed wiring assemblies. However, having a power supply split up into multiple separate boards increases expenses and manufacturing complexity and cost.